The present invention relates to a fiber optic cable restoration enclosure and, more particularly, to an enclosure for temporarily encapsulating a fiber optic cable splice during an interruption of the splicing process.
The use of fiber optic transmission cables has become a standard communications medium in many situations. A typical cable may comprise a plurality of glass fibers, each of which is protected by at least one layer of a coating material. The optical fibers may be assembled into units in which the fibers are held together by binder ribbons to provide a core.
During the service life of a fiber optic cable, the cable may become damaged, or a need may arise to re-route or re-arrange the cable's location. In any event, it may become necessary to splice one fiber cable to another without losing the integrity of the optical signal transmission through the bundle of fibers. Unlike traditional cable wire splicing, optical fiber splicing is rather time-consuming, requiring that each individual pair of fibers being coupled are optically aligned and held with sufficient rigidity to prevent any later movement or vibration to result in misalignment.
Various arrangements exist in the prior art for performing optical fiber splicing. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,684,911, entitled "Sub-Surface Fiber Optic Splice Housing and Method of Splicing Fiber Optic Cable" issued to M. E. Burgett on Nov. 4, 1997. Burgett discusses a housing that is capable of being repeatably opened and closed (to provide adjustment of the various fiber splices) without jeopardizing the structural integrity, electrical insulation and water tightness within the housing. U.S. Pat. No. 4,319,951, entitled "Fiber Organizer for Splice Cases and Terminals" issued to K. N. Korbelak et al on Mar. 16, 1982 discloses a particular "block" that case be used to hold each optical fiber in a coiled position while being spliced to an associated fiber in another cable.
While these and other arrangements are suitable for the purpose of splicing fiber optic cables, a problem arises when the splicing operation is interrupted before each splice can be made. When interrupted, a number of optical fiber terminations consist of "bare" fiber that are extremely fragile and are very likely to be damaged.
Thus, a need remains for an arrangement for protecting a fiber cable splice in situations where the splicing operation is interrupted before it can be completed.